Tag Archives: Torture

INVOLUNTARY COMMITMENT AND FORCED PSYCHIATRIC DRUGGING IN THE TRIAL COURTS: RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AS A MATTER OF COURSEJAMES B. (JIM) GOTTSTEIN*

http://psychrights.org/Research/Legal/25AkLRev51Gottstein2008.pdf

A commonly-held belief is that locking up and forcibly drugging people
diagnosed with mental illness is in their best interests as well as society’s as a
whole. The truth is far different. Rather than protecting the public from harm,
public safety is decreased. Rather than helping psychiatric respondents, many
are greatly harmed. The evidence on this is clear. Constitutional, statutory, and
judge-made law, if followed, would protect psychiatric respondents from being
erroneously deprived of their freedom and right to decline psychiatric drugs.
However, lawyers representing psychiatric respondents, and judges hearing
these cases uncritically reflect society’s beliefs and do not engage in legitimate
legal processes when conducting involuntarily commitment and forced
drugging proceedings. By abandoning their core principle of zealous advocacy,
lawyers representing psychiatric respondents interpose little, if any, defense and
are not discovering and presenting to judges the evidence of the harm to their
clients. By abandoning their core principle of being faithful to the law, judges
have become instruments of oppression, rather than protectors of the rights of
the downtrodden. While this Article focuses on Alaska, similar processes may be
found in other United States’ jurisdictions, with only the details differing.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………….. 53
II. MYERS AND WETHERHORN………………………………………………………….. 55

Video of a disabled teen tied down and given painful electric shocks for seven hours should be made public, the youth’s mother said, so everyone can see what she describes as the “torture” her son went through at the controversial school, the only one in Massachusetts that uses pain to treat its clients.
“This is worse than a nightmare,” Cheryl McCollins said about her disabled son, Andre. “It is horrific. And poor Andre, who had to suffer through this, and not know why.”

The ordeal began after Andre hit a staff member. Inside a classroom, as a camera was recording, he was tied to a restraint board, face down, a helmet over his head.

He stayed like that for seven hours without a break, no food, no water, or trips to the bathroom. Each time he screamed or tensed up, he was shocked, 31 times in all. His mother called the next day to check on him.

After spending three days in a comatose state, not eating or drinking, Andre was taken to Children’s Hospital, where he was diagnosed with “acute stress response” caused by the shocks.

“The doctors took all the shackles and all those things off of him. Andre’s not talking to me. I’m just holding him and telling him how much I love him, and asking him please to talk to me, just tell me what happened,” McCollins said.

What happened that morning in October 2002 became clear after the Rotenberg Center showed her the video of Andre’s ordeal, recorded by the classroom camera.

“When I viewed the tape, I saw Andre walking into a room, someone asking him to take off his coat. Andre said no, they shocked him, he went underneath the table trying to get away from them. They pulled him out, tied him up and they continued to shock him,” McCollins said.

“When you look at that videotape, what was the purpose of all those shocks?” asked FOX Undercover reporter Mike Beaudet.

“I have no idea,” McCollins replied.

“Did you get an apology?” Beaudet asked.

“No, they felt what they did was therapy,” McCollins replied.

“Does that look like therapy to you?” Beaudet asked.

“No, it was torture,” McCollins said.

For now, the public can’t see for themselves what Andre’s treatment looks like because the Rotenberg Center asked a Norfolk Superior Court judge to seal the video tape, saying it would be unsettling for viewers who didn’t understand the context. The judge agreed, and the video remains under a protective order.

“This is video they fought vehemently not to release, fought vehemently to keep quiet and I think now are very concerned that this tape is out there,” said attorney Andrew Meyer, who represents Andre McCollins in a lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center.

“The Judge Rotenberg Center has consistently gotten away with being able to soft sell their treatment, to whitewash what they’ve done about it being therapeutic: ‘It’s not so bad, it helps these children.’ But the eyewitness accounts that we now have about what actually goes on at this center puts to lie everything they’ve been saying,” Meyer said.